Spain Imposes Fine on Reality TV Website for Promoting Unlicensed Gambling

(AsiaGameHub) –   Zona Gemelos was found to have promoted affiliate links and commercial communications for unlicensed gambling in Spain.

Spain.- The Spanish gambling regulator, the DGOJ, has announced a sanction against Make Money Now, S.L., for promoting unlicensed gambling. It said the operator of the reality TV live stream site Zona Gemelos (Twin Zone) website had committed a “serious infraction”.

The site is known for live streaming reality shows such as The Twins’ House and The Twins’ Prison. The DGOJ says it promoted unlicensed gambling operators through affiliate links and commercial communications on social media platforms such as Instagram, Kick, X and Discord.

The regulator said the activity represented breaches of Law 13/2011 on Gambling Regulation. It issued a fine of €10,000, which the company was able to reduce to €6,000 by accepting responsibility and making early payment, as permitted under Article 85 of the LPACAP (Law on the Legal Regime of Public Administrations and Common Administrative Procedure). The reduction also recognises that content was removed promptly following an initial request for information.

€10.2m in fines for Spanish gambling breaches in Q1

The Ministry of Consumer Affairs issued fines totalling over €10.2m to nine companies in the online gambling and betting sector in Spain during the first quarter of 2026. Of the nine resolutions issued by the Directorate General for Gambling Regulation (DGOJ), two were for “very serious infractions”, for a combined €10m, while seven for serious infractions, totalling €290,500.

The two companies sanctioned for very serious infractions are foreign online gambling operators that operate without a Spanish licence. Perfect Storm B.V. and Rossobash SRL were each fined €5,000,000. In addition to the financial penalty, the sanctions entail the disqualification of these operators for a period of two years.

The remaining serious infractions targeted operators who operate with a licence but commit an infraction specified in Article 40 of Law 13/2011 on Gambling Regulation. The six operators sanctioned were WHG Ceuta S.A., Tombola International Malta PLC, Emotiva CLM SL, Beatya Online SA, DZBT Deportes SA, and TSG Interactive Spain SA. The amount of the fines varies depending on the infraction committed.

The latest amendment to Spain’s Gambling Regulation Law established that serious and very serious infractions that have been definitively resolved through administrative channels will be published on the DGOJ website. In compliance, the Ministry of Social Rights, Consumer Affairs and Agenda 2030 has published the sanctioning resolutions that have become final since July 2021. Since then, the number of published sanctions amounts to 221 and has imposed fines totalling more than 506 million euros.

The Spanish government’s Consumer Affairs Department, to which the DGOH belongs, stressed the importance of strengthening oversight of content and platforms with large young audiences. It sees this demographic as particularly vulnerable to the risks associated with online gambling, which it says are amplified when illegal operators fail to implement measures to ensure a safer digital environment.

Andrés Barragán, Secretary General for Consumer Affairs and Gambling, has said that the government intends to centralise safer gambling tools and introduce several new restrictions this year. Speaking at the annual conference of FEJAR, an association of rehabilitated gamblers in January, he said Spain currently had an irregular support framework and needed more coordination among national agencies to tackle gambling-related harms.